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Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
221–230 of 277 posts
Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#222Disappointed by Coursera and Udacity (they positioned for free MOOCs and now they are taking everything back they offered). More power to KhanAcademy and MIT Open Courseware! For staying true to their mission of providing Free Courses...
> Disappointed by Udacity (they positioned for free MOOCs and now they are taking everything back they offered).
Nonsense. Udacity now have paid "Nanodegree" courses alongside their free ones. They haven't removed their free courses, and in fact continue to release new free ones.
Also, their paid courses come with grading and code feedback from humans, so it's not like it was scalable as a free option.
Further, they guarantee you'll get a job based on the Nanodegree courses or you get your money back.
Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct, and top universities do that through investment in research and publication rather than populist fads. Every once in a while people call into question the value of higher education and ask whether MOOCs mark the end of traditional universities. I find it ironic that when top universities flex their muscles and start asking those people to pay up for classes - the same classes that you otherwise would have ha…
Maybe we should have a Coursera-like site exclusively for non-US universities, then. Meaning the courses are taxpayer funded and free for students (or, in some places, you might be paid to take them ;) ).
Why, I'd like see teaching and testing separate in that case, so the information stays accessible, while the capitalization on the students is left to those in need to submit to it. I suppose that's what you meant.
The judgment on exercises that is helpful to the students in traditional universities is a factor proportional to the size of courses. On the one hand there is automatic testing, that's feasible in basic matters. Take Khan Academy for example. A test that anyone can do with advanced knowledge is a simple application.
The motivation to really learn, that some get from deadlines, is learned and it's less direct than an actual want to understand a topic. In that sense, while a job doesn't need to become a passion, the drive to really dive deep into a topic comes as part of a hobby and so the tax payer would probably not want to afford that. But that is a different topic and I'm biased against taxes.
In any case, costs could probably be reduced so much per student, that it needn't be the driving factor, far from the tuition that is payed now.
Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coursera is willing to have the same amount of money you're willing to keep. How are they greedier than you? Expecting a service without giving anything in return is the definition of "greedy".
You just don't get it. I can afford to pay for a MOOC and I would consider it, but there are millions of people who can't afford it. Coursera's about page used to say this: "committed to making the best education in the world freely available to any person who seeks it". Now they have removed every instance of the word "free" https://www.coursera.org/about/ Nothing wrong with being a for-profit company, but they went…
Capitalism, aye. Is this Shirky's Law in action?
Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#225Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#226Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well... I guess it's too late... they probably noticed already because I can't download any more courses :(
you have to enroll in them and accept their honor rolls first. Does that work?
Not really. I was already enrolled and it didn't work, so not sure what happened.
Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
So why not share all the downloaded content through a p2p torrent network, rather than to keep them in our own servers to ourselves, so that everyone else benefits?
As someone else pointed out, that is not allowed by the TOS. But quite frankly... now that such content is not freely available anymore, I expect that to begin circulating on the p2p networks anyway.
Speaking of which: a few years ago there was quite awesome astronomy course, which I didn't have time to finish in real-time, and the content was deleted as soon as the course ended. I liked it wa-ay better than any other astronomy-ish stuff they had (and still have) later: it was more about actually modelling the celestial sphere and understanding the movement of the planets, than vaguely speaking about contents of the universe. Does by any chance anyone know how I can try and find it somewhere else? All I remember is that the professor had long gray hair and beard, which isn't really google-able.
Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#229In case you want to download as may courses as possible before they fade away, here are some notes. Please forgive me some mistakes, I wrote this a bit in a hurry. =========================== 1) Spawn a virtual server on DigitalOcean. I am using the 40$/month in order to have 40GB of space, but my plan is to shut it down in a day or two. The advantage is to have storage space AND super-fast connection. If you don't w…
http://pastebin.com/ESiirEjU
list of available courses, in format: course_session_id, course_link
Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses
#230I hope edx does not follow coursera way.
I believe they did in a way, certificates are now available only if you pay, rather than for anyone taking the class. That doesn't bother me but it's the first step coursera took before ending up where it is now.
Please don't compare. I don't give a damn about certificates, and I think it's totally fair for them to be paid. Actually, as I think it's only normal to not give a damn about certificates, I'd say even some kind of "full track" with exams is ok to be paid for. They still provide good learning material for free.
And, by the way, the quality of the course material on edx is arguably better. It's a shame that coursera's got way more recognition somehow, apparently.